The History of NAIMH
The North American Institute of Medical Herbalism was established in 1989 in Portland, Oregon. We began publishing the Medical Herbalism journal that year. Our Medical Herbalism journal was the first publication in the modern era to focus entirely on the education and concerns of the medical level clinical practitioner, providing needed support at a time when hands-on clinical training of herbalists was almost non-existent in North America. Medical Herbalism was published as a print journal from 1989 until 2014, and has featured articles by some of the leading clinical herbalists in North America during that time. We are currently in transition to an Open Access free online version of the journal.
NAIMH was established to continue the Vitalist Tradition of herbalism in this era when effective herbal practice has been declining not only due to the lack of availability of hands-on clinical training, but also due to undue emphasis on materialism, on concentrated pharmaceutical forms of herbs, a "this-for-that" kind of allopathic herbalism, and a superficial approach to rigor in the study of herbs.
We have also promoted a renewed awareness of the Thomsonian/ Physiomedical school of medical-level herbalism, which has a tradition of clinical practice both in North America and the United Kingdom lasting for almost 200 years, up to the present. The Physiomedicalists were physicians who used herbs, and used them completely within the Vitalist paradigm. We have taught the key concepts of this school in our classes since 1996. In 1998, we digitized a reprinted edition of the key Physiomedical text The Physiomedical Dispensatory by William Cook, MD, originally published in 1869.
We began training advanced herbalists in clinical residencies at teaching clinics in 1996, first through the Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies in Boulder, CO. The RMCBS closed in 2003 and we established the NAIMH school, clinic, and pharmacy in Boulder to continue the education. From 1996-2012, we developed pre-clinical and clinical training unique in North America, in that the practice includes a complete integration of medical herbalism, dietetics, and clinical nutrition, in the Vitalist Paradigm. In addition, the clinical faculty and students collaborate through study of all the cases in the clinic, multiplying the ongoing case-based learning for both faculty and students.
The NAIMH school in Boulder was sold in 2012 to become the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism, which continues the original NAIMH curriculum and methods of clinical training. We developed our Advanced Clinical Skills Certificate in 2020 and the full course of NAIMH curriculum including the Clinical Skills Program. First and second year training using the NAIMH course materials are offered at the ACORN School of Herbal Medicine, as well as a teaching clinic for hands-on clinical training. Through the teaching clinics at both the ACORN School and Colorado School, we have graduated more than 400 clinical herbalists since 1996.
In 2006, NAIMH began offering Audio Courses with online mentoring. In 2014, we added Certificate Programs at various levels. Audio recordings are from our Advanced pre-clinical program in Boulder, with supplemental materials recorded in the studio. More than 7000 students have taken these courses. We began developing a network of affiliated schools in 2016. These independent schools have integrated the NAIMH audio courses into their unique regular curricula.